Why Only You?!
"Why?!"
Early morning.
From one of the rooms, someone was howling.
"Why is it only you who advances in realm?!"
It was Canteas.
He had gone to Belhart carrying a Dragon Heart, and the moment he returned, he had appeared as Super-Peak and Sixth Circle.
How was that even possible?!
He himself still couldn't return to his true body, trapped forever in this pathetic frame!
"Me! Why can't I go back?!"
Rattle-rattle-rattle.
Canteas seized Do-ha by the collar and shook him.
Had there ever been a world this unfair?!
"Uh… sorry I was the only one who ranked up?"
"Aaaargh! This can't be happening!"
"Peep…"
The hatchling circled Canteas with a mournful look.
"Get lost!"
"Nice way to treat a newborn."
"You can shut up too! I don't need any of this!"
"Oh? Then I'll sell every game console and computer in your room. And that house I promised you? Deal's off."
Canteas flinched.
Only then did his sanity snap back into place.
"Ah… n-no, that is…"
"I was even thinking of buying you that new graphics card that's about to drop as a gift… but never mind."
"Aigoo, Your Imperial Majesty. What does my true body matter? Your Majesty growing stronger is far more important, of course."
"…"
Watching Canteas's attitude flip in a single breath, Do-ha let out a hollow laugh.
Truly, every time he looked at this creature, he was amazed.
How had this guy ever reached the Eighth Circle?
Someone this simple and stupid—no, this naive?
"…Fine. Go buy one."
"Oh yeah!"
The instant Do-ha held out a card, Canteas leapt for joy.
He'd been planning to swipe a few mana stones anyway—and now he was being handed a card!
"By the way, any word from Han Jeong-soo?"
"He's been reporting every day since you left for Belhart. Nothing special yet, though. As you know, they'll be lying low for a full month."
"Anything else?"
"Lately it's pure chaos."
Canteas opened an article on his phone and held it out.
Ever since the connection to Belhart, interest in people from other dimensions had exploded.
And of course it had—until now, "other-dimensional beings" had meant only elves and dwarves.
Not humans. This time, they were the same species.
Knights and mages, no less.
And martial artists from Moorim on top of that. Expectations weren't merely high; they were punching through the sky.
"Dimerof woke up all right, I take it?"
"Yeah. You? Did you see him?"
"Emilton showed me to where he was lying. Then I tried to return to my true body."
"How long has it been here since I left for Belhart? Earth time."
"Same as there. Three days."
"…It was three days there too."
With the dimensions linked, their timelines had synchronized.
Once they had drifted wildly out of step; now the two worlds shared the same clock.
"Oh, right—Old Man Song called two days ago. They're about to start construction and asked us to demolish the existing buildings."
"I'll have to go handle that."
"No need. I already went and tore everything down."
He had summoned hundreds of skeletons, slapped Time Explosion on a few of them to blast the structures apart, and set the rest to clearing rubble.
Thanks to that, demolition and cleanup had finished in a single day.
"Old Man Song didn't say anything else?"
"He asked if I felt like taking a job with him."
"Pfft."
Fair enough.
From a construction company's point of view, how invaluable a talent was Canteas?
Of course Canteas wasn't human—but whenever he went outside he cloaked himself in illusion magic, so no one could tell he was a Lich.
"Peeeeeep!"
"Ugh. I said get lost!"
The hatchling suddenly lunged in and nuzzled against his face, and Canteas snapped in irritation.
Canteas and dragons had never gotten along, not even in the past.
More precisely, dragons had always hated Canteas.
He had captured dragons for experiments and even created a Bone Dragon—there was no way they could like him.
Because of that, Canteas openly despised any dragon that picked a fight with him.
Yet this hatchling kept charging at him with pure affection, leaving Canteas both uncomfortable and thoroughly at a loss.
"Why do you keep throwing yourself at me?!"
"Maybe it's hungry."
"Peep!"
The hatchling nodded at Do-ha's words.
"What?! It understood what you said?!"
Both Do-ha and Canteas jolted in shock.
How long had it been since it hatched, and it already understood human speech?
Even a dragon, freshly out of the egg, was no different from any other beast.
It normally took at least ten years before one could understand language and begin to speak.
"Are Black Dragons especially clever?"
"No. Stronger, sure—but I've never heard of them being exceptionally intelligent."
Even Canteas looked fascinated; he had never seen anything like this.
"You understand us?"
"Peep!"
The hatchling nodded the instant the words left his mouth.
"How do you understand?"
"Peep? Peep!"
"Sounds like it just… does."
"Peep-peep."
It nodded again, as if to say that was exactly right.
In truth, if you asked how it understood speech, there was no way for it to explain.
The words simply arrived in its ears, naturally.
"You like this bag of bones?"
"Bag of bones, what the hell…"
"You are bones."
"Okay, yes, but—ah, screw it."
"You like him?"
"Peep!"
The hatchling nodded once more at Do-ha's question.
"What about me?"
"Peep…"
"Never mind. Forget I asked."
When the hatchling tilted its head in thought, Do-ha shook his own.
It could have at least lied. Did it really need to deliberate that hard?
"Pwahahaha! Of course—it's a dragon, so it's smart. Even this little one can't stand a lunatic."
"…Guess you don't want to use that card."
"I misspoke. Please forgive me."
"First let's feed it. And you should give it a name."
"A name?"
"We can't keep calling it 'hey,' 'that thing,' 'this thing,' or 'hatchling' forever."
"Hmm… how about Lizard?"
"Peep…"
At the word "lizard," the hatchling's lips pushed out in a pout.
Dragon or not, it clearly hated being called a lizard.
"Hmm… it keeps going peep-peep, so how about Peepy?"
"Just don't name anything. Ever."
"Or it's black, so… Coal?"
Whoosh!
Thud.
"Ghk!"
The hatchling finally snapped, rocketing forward and headbutting Canteas square in the stomach.
Could he not just give it a normal name?
"All right. Decided."
"Peep?"
Canteas clapped his hands together, and the hatchling tilted its head.
Please, this time, something decent…
"From now on, you are Yong-yong. No objections."
"Peep!"
The moment it heard "Yong-yong," the hatchling erupted in fury.
Of all the countless names in the world, why Yong-yong?!
It refused to go around with a name that rustic.
"Ah, whatever. You're Yong-yong now."
"Peeeeeep!"
"Ow ow ow! That hurts!"
"Ugh. So loud."
As the two of them raised hell, Do-ha shook his head and left the room.
Fortunately he had layered magic over the chamber; without it, his sleeping grandfather would have woken for sure.
Shwaaaaah.
Kuuuuuh.
"Oh…"
Watching Do-ha seated in full lotus, Canteas found himself gasping in admiration without meaning to.
He was only circulating his energy, yet an overwhelming presence poured from him.
He was clearly Super-Peak—so what was this crushing pressure?
Sssk.
"Are you sure you're really Super-Peak?"
When Do-ha opened his eyes, Canteas asked the question.
He himself had met and fought countless martial artists across the Central Plains of Moorim.
He had never seen a Super-Peak like Do-ha.
If you judged by presence alone, it felt less like Super-Peak and more like a master of the Hwa-gyeong sitting there.
"I am Super-Peak. But I have magic as well, so it probably feels different."
"Yeah… that would do it."
Clench. Unclench.
Do-ha opened and closed his fist, a smile touching the corner of his mouth.
Lately he had a very specific reason for wanting to climb the ranks so quickly.
At last I can perform Beol-mo-se-su and Jin-gi-do-in.
He had wanted to heal his grandfather's body for a long time, but he hadn't been able to.
To control the energy inside another person's body required at least Super-Peak.
Of course Beol-mo-se-su was possible without Super-Peak—but the critical technique, Jin-gi-do-in, demanded a high realm.
Especially when the patient was an elderly man.
"I have to do Jin-gi-do-in."
"Ah~ for your grandfather?"
Hearing Do-ha's mutter, Canteas understood at once.
Jin-gi-do-in—also called True Qi Healing—was a restorative art.
The name varied slightly by region, but Jin-gi-do-in was the most common term.
"Right. Jin-gi-do-in first, before Beol-mo-se-su."
Jin-gi-do-in treated internal injuries and existing ailments.
Beol-mo-se-su expelled turbid energy and waste from the body, remade the skeletal frame, and washed the marrow clean.
Think of it as similar to Hwangol-taltae, only a step lower.
"What happens if you start with Beol-mo-se-su?"
"Any illness he already has gets worse."
As he'd said, the process of reshaping the bones and scouring the marrow allowed disease-demons to invade.
That was why anyone attempting Beol-mo-se-su had to begin with True Qi Healing and clear the sickness first.
"You wouldn't happen to have something like Gong-cheong-seok-yu or Maneon-seolsam lying around?"
"Could you not ask for legendary elixirs like you're hunting down junk food? How would I have treasures like that…"
Canteas shook his head at Do-ha's question.
If he'd had anything of the sort, he would have eaten it himself—or sold it long ago.
"Do you really need a spiritual elixir?"
"Grandfather's age makes it necessary."
Beol-mo-se-su was most effective the younger the physical body.
With age the body stiffened and turbid energy piled up in vast amounts.
What could punch through that accumulation was a spiritual elixir.
Not some mediocre tonic—an elixir brimming with tremendous vital force.
"Go find those bald monks and demand a Great Return Pill. Tell them if they don't hand one over, you'll plant weeds on their shiny heads. Keheheh."
Smack.
Canteas took a hit and crumpled into the corner.
Why did this guy hate Shaolin so much?
"You've never even fought them. Why do you torment them the second you see them?"
"Because every time they see me they scream 'Unholy!' and call me an evil thing!"
"Aren't you, though? You're a Lich. Undead. Of course you're evil."
"Uh… am I?"
"Ugh…"
Do-ha shook his head.
"And a Great Return Pill won't work. Neither will a Supreme Clarity Pill, or the Mount Hua Sect's Purple Mist Divine Pill."
What he needed wasn't an artificially refined elixir, but something saturated with the pure qi of nature.
Yang or yin didn't matter.
He could control either one himself.
Whichever it was, it had to be overflowing with natural energy.
"Maybe check the secondhand markets?"
Chinese hunters occasionally listed things they claimed were spiritual elixirs.
"Fakes, guaranteed. No one insane enough to sell a real elixir would put it up."
He had absolutely no intention of buying anything like that.
A spiritual elixir taken wrong became poison—and he was supposed to feed his grandfather something Chinese hunters cooked up?
He'd rather make peace with the Demon God.
Come to think of it, the Central Plains of Moorim in Belhart have a different history from China's… will they even get along?
At least the written language was the same—Chinese characters.
"Ah. I know one place."
"Where? What's there?"
"I heard about it a long time ago, though, so I'm not certain. Before I was sealed."
"So at least two hundred years ago. What kind of elixir?"
"The Eternal Ice Crystal."
"?!"
At the words "Eternal Ice Crystal," Do-ha's expression lit up.
A shade below Gong-cheong-seok-yu—but still a premier yin elixir.